COLD VR Review: A Flawed Inversion of SUPERHOT

COLD VR delivers moments of entertaining action on Steam, but it's let down by frustrating level design and an unpolished presentation. Here's our full review.

I try to avoid overly comparing games with other titles in reviews, but it's impossible to ignore COLD VR's inspirations. We're witnessing an increasing amount of VR games take inspiration from SUPERHOT VR, the 2016 hit where time only moves when you do, yet COLD VR sets itself apart by flipping this idea. Delivering an action game where time slows down when you move, it's an intriguing premise let down in the execution.

A decent narrative boosted by some enjoyable live-action clips from an (in-game) ALLWARE employee laces together this campaign. A rogue AI's attempting to capture humanity inside its simulation that leads to a multiple choice ending, but it's not something you need to closely follow. All you need to do is avoid getting hit and either find the exit or destroy these crystal blue foes.

Continuously needing to move means you can't spend too much time thinking about your next move. COLD VR's approach demands action, quick thinking and adaptability that can deliver an enjoyable challenge. Slicing through crowds with a light sword or watching enemies shatter into pieces as a slow-motion bullet flies through them can be pretty satisfying. Even better is placing yourself in a spot that causes your foes to shoot each other; it's the one friendly fire I'll accept.

Unfortunately, some levels suffer from poor layouts and this gets frustrating. The train mission Callum noted in his preview remains a big offender, though some levels feel like I only got through on luck. Enemy placements and limited room to maneuver caused repeat restarts on some missions, but other encounters feel unfairly weighted against you.

One level near the end immediately throws you into the firing line after picking up your weapon, and I've lost count of my total restarts. Not only is there a limited window to dodge enemy bullets from multiple angles, you must do this across four different floors. This quickly becomes frustrating, and finally clearing the last floor left me more exasperated than jubilant.

Another big problem is COLD VR's inconsistencies, and that's best exemplified by the horror levels based on The Backrooms. On one hand, the idea that this rogue AI's going to suddenly throw you into a nightmare for messing with its plans is terrifyingly fiendish. It's making your life a living hell to convince you to stop, and that's only enhanced by VR's immersion.

However, the end result is a tonal mismatch. Anyone who doesn't like VR horror will be pleased to know these sequences can be skipped, yet that presents another issue. The disclaimers ruin any sense of surprise and disrupt the flow of gameplay, even if you're someone who enjoys horror games. I'd rather these sequences could be turned off (or on) from your in-game hub area to help streamline the action, instead of presenting you with a big warning every time.

COLD VR packs a few different weapons to play with, though some of them don't feel that different functionally. Half your melee weapons feel like some stylized variation of a sword, while the only major difference with guns normally is ammo count and firing speed.

One notably different weapon is a sniper rifle you can perch onto a ledge. Every shot requires pulling back the bolt to eject casings before you can fire again and while I usually appreciate manual reloading, it only frustrated me here because the bolt keeps “slipping” from my grip.

Another issue is that hit detection doesn't always work, though this didn't occur that frequently. Swords can visibly impact my blue opponents and do nothing, some weapons when thrown would get stuck in midair, while others would bounce around wildly. All of this leaves COLD VR feeling distinctly unpolished at times.

There are a couple of issues that emerge during gameplay too. For example, going past a solid object into what I'd assume is an “out of bounds area” simply cuts the screen to black without a warning, which gets disorienting. I noticed this in 'The Pirate' level too, only I was jumping from a ledge to start. The animations don't always match when you hold weapons, either, as I discover upon seeing my hand float through a gun before it gradually sets into place.

On Steam, COLD VR runs well, there's a good soundtrack backing up the action and the neon themes fit nicely into this dystopian sci-fi aesthetic. The PC VR version usually looks pretty decent but the visuals take a sharp hit on Quest, which I've detailed this further above.

To demonstrate this more clearly, here's a comparison video of the opening scene, recorded by UploadVR's video producer, Don Hopper.

Sadly, some presentation elements also feel unpolished. The start menu is presented like a flatscreen in floating space, with comfort options to the left. Next to that? Four options that say low, medium, high, and epic. These are the graphical settings, but the game doesn't state that. It's just four options alone with no additional context. Moments like this leave COLD VR feeling underbaked and rushed.

COLD VR Review — Final Verdict

It's hard not to think of the wasted potential here with COLD VR, and the 40-stage campaign took me roughly three hours to complete. ALLWARE's debut game needed more time, better balancing, and considerably more polish to fine tune the core campaign before next week's launch. That's especially true when playing on Quest compared to the Steam edition.

I hope future updates can address these issues because there are moments where COLD VR delivers a fun twist on SUPERHOT's premise. I came away from numerous levels celebrating my victory, dodging bullets in slow motion still feels cool, and the action is satisfying when it works. Presently though, it's a difficult game to recommend.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.